This highly diverse facility has pioneered the development of solar energy applications worldwide. The Solar Energy and Energy Conversion Laboratory (SEECL) was unique in developing practical solar energy devices based on established principles of thermodynamics, heat transfer, and fluid mechanics long before solar energy was considered a serious energy alternative.
1950-1959
GainesvilleState: FLCountry: USAWebsite: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/history/landmarks/topics-m-z/research-and-development/-223-solar-energy-and-energy-conversion-laboratory, https://www.asme.org/getmedia/6ab985e7-a7b5-4c91-b4d7-8c32af04334c/223-Solar-Energy-and-Energy-Conversion-Laboratory.aspxCreator: Farber, Erich
YearAdded:
Image Credit: Courtesy ASMEImage Caption: The SEECL was originally located at the Gianesville Regional Airport. Early experimental devices stood on the pad near the WW II bunker (early 1950s).Era_date_from: 1954
2003
ShippingportState: PAZip: 15050Country: USAWebsite: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/history/landmarks/topics-a-l/electric-power-production-nuclear/-47-shippingport-nuclear-power-station-%281958%29, https://www.asme.org/getmedia/c64a220f-030c-4384-8336-7d9857248322/47-Shippingport-Nuclear-Power-Station.aspxCreator: Duquesne Light Company
The first commercial central electric-generating station in the United States to use nuclear energy was the Shippingport Atomic Power Station of the Department of Energy and the Duquesne Light Company. In a dramatic high-tech display, ground was broken in 1954 during dedication ceremonies by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who also opened it on May 26, 1958, as part of his "Atoms for Peace" program. Shippingport is located on the Ohio River about 25 miles from Pittsburgh.
YearAdded:
Image Credit: Public Domain (National Park Service)Image Caption: Shippingport Nuclear Power StationEra_date_from: 1958
1980
This wind tunnel complex was developed by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NASA's predecessor) to serve the emerging need for supersonic research and development following World War II. The three-testing-section configuration covers Mach number .03-3.5 and utilizes a single common drive and two compressors.
YearAdded:
Image Credit: Public Domain (NASA)Image Caption: NASA Ames Unitary Plan Wind TunnelEra_date_from: 1956
1996
The Mackinac (pronounced "Mack-in-awe") Bridge (1957) spans the Straits of Mackinac between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, connecting the Lower and Upper peninsulas of Michigan. Prior to the construction of the bridge, a fleet of nine ferries would carry as many as 9,000 vehicles per day, with traffic backups stretching as long as 16 miles.
YearAdded:
Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Miss a Liss (CC BY-ND 2.0)Image Caption: Mackinac BridgeEra_date_from: 1958
2009
As ideas developed, they abandoned infrared radiation to instead concentrate upon visible light. The concept originally was called an "optical maser". In 1958, Bell Labs filed a patent application for their proposed optical maser; and Schawlow and Townes submitted a manuscript of their theoretical calculations to the Physical Review, published that year in Volume 112, Issue No. 6.
Simultaneously, at Columbia University, graduate student Gordon Gould was working on a doctoral thesis about the energy levels of excited thallium.
The Jake Brake permits large trucks to descend long, steep grades at a controlled speed. It was the first practical mechanism for altering on demand the valve timing on a truck diesel engine, thereby converting the engine to a power absorbing machine. The modified engine can continue to power the truck in normal operation, allowing service brakes to remain cool for emergency situations. Invented by Clessie Lyle Cummins (1886-1968), this device (produced by the Jacobs manufacturing company since 1961) has contributed significantly to highway safety.
YearAdded:
Image Credit: Courtesy Wikipedia/Sierra Fournier (CC BY-SA 3.0)Image Caption: Jacobs Engine Brake Retarder ("Jake Brake")Era_date_from: 1957
1985
Frank Zybach, a tenant farmer and inventor living near Strasburg, Colorado, received a patent for a "Self-Propelled Sprinkling Irrigating Apparatus" on July 22, 1952.
The device used mobile towers to continuously move a pipeline in a circle around a pivot. Water was supplied through the pivot and distributed by sprinklers on the pipeline. Zybach formed a partnership with A.E. Trowbridge, an entrepreneur-businessman, in 1953 to manufacture center pivots in Columbus, Nebraska.
YearAdded:
Image Credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture photoImage Caption: The Center Pivot Irrigator transformed agricultural production throughout the world.Era_date_from: 1952
1993
A variety of mechanical feeders, including drag-chain conveyors and rotary pocket feeders, historically have been used to volumetrically control the flow of fuel to coal pulverizers on power generators. Most power generation in the United States has relied on burning fossil fuels in steam boilers, with coal as the fuel of choice. By the 1920s, pulverized-firing (the burning in suspension of finely ground coal particles) evolved as means to more complete fuel combustion and higher system efficiencies and facilitated the use of larger boilers.
YearAdded:
Image Caption: Drawing from patent documents for Gravimetric Coal Feeder.Era_date_from: 1957
1995
A curious child who dissembled the clocks in her parent's home, Grace Hopper graduated from Vassar College with a B.A. in mathematics and physics. She continued her education at Yale University by completing a masters and Ph.D. in mathematics. She then returned to Vassar to teach.
During World War II, Hopper joined the Navy and was sworn into the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1943. After training, she was commissioned as a lieutenant and assigned to the Bureau of Ordinance Computation Project at Harvard University. She became the third person to program the Harvard Mark I computer.
From 1956 to 1993, the GE Re-entry Systems facility was home to thousands of engineers and technicians who solved the problem of vehicles successfully reentering the Earth’s atmosphere. As described by aerospace pioneer Theodore Von Karman, “ Reentry… is perhaps the most difficult problem one can imagine.” Whether it was the first operational reentry vehicle for the Atlas ICBM, the recovery of the first man-made object from orbit, or the first probe to enter Jupiter’s atmosphere, some of the most significant milestones in aerospace were accomplished by those working in this facility.
YearAdded:
Image Credit: Public Domain (Author's Choice)Image Caption: GE Re-entry SystemsEra_date_from: 1956
2007
Innovations
The first production of usable nuclear electricity occurred on December 20, 1951, when four light bulbs were lit with electricity generated from the EBR-1 reactor. Experimental Breeder Reactor No.1 was designated a Registered National Historic Landmark in 1966.
University of Wisconsin-Madison biochemist Karl Paul Link and his lab isolated an anticoagulant compound from spoiled sweet clover hay in 1939, after a Wisconsin farmer's cattle began hemorrhaging from the moldy feed. Their research led to warfarin, marketed first as a rat poison in 1948 and…
Read More